Corporate work life: How to Thrive and Survive

Corporate Russian Roulette

There are days when I go to work and before 10 am, I am fully ready to hand in my resignation and just say ‘Screw it All!’

Yes, this is real life.

It’s the life some of us live.

We are not supposed to verbalise these feelings, in fact, you’re not supposed to talk about how much you hate certain aspects of corporate work life until you become one of those stories of people who have quit and hopefully able to brag that you’re ‘living your best life’

So, what do you do instead?

You remain, grateful, continue to do your best work, take care of your mental health and survive. There are a slew of things that we can all do to ensure that we survive and make the most of what working in a large organisation has to offer.

After all, it’s not all doom and gloom and in fairness, the good days far outweigh the dark clouds of a bad day.

There are some strategies that I have learned to employ to help me make the best of every moment and keep focused on being productive, accountable, alive and thriving.

Walk with me.

 Reading is a gift that will keep on giving

If you are a reader, know that it is a gift that will serve you well in the corporate world, why? Because many people, working at whatever level of the corporate ladder, simply refuse to contend with anything that requires reading. They simply consider it bothersome and you see the results of this in email arguments that take place daily in companies everywhere. Now, with everyone else not reading, being able to spot details is something that adds value, because with less people reading, it means, more folks missing nuance and important details.

Email follow-ups are key

Sometime ago I wrote about email etiquette for the workplace here and it was an opportunity for me to delve into email habits that can serve us well.

If it’s one thing James Comey’s book –  taught me, it was the importance of contemporaneous notes following meetings. What Comey did was brilliant. As a practice, he would routinely prepare memos following meetings to ensure a record of whatever the exchange was, existed. If you are familiar with his story, you know how well those memos served him, when it became necessary to sharing his story.

In the corporate world, it’s no different, just a bit less intense. What I have found to work is preparing an email immediately following any meeting and sharing it with all participants, documenting the specific discussions and action points. I refuse to call this email meeting minutes, as I have learned that ‘meeting minutes’ – imbued with all the formality and need to record every small detail – often takes at least two days to be prepared and dispatched. This is the heights of inefficiency and is simply a time waster.

The key thing about this practice is that it prevents others from changing the narrative of the meeting to fit what they need. Plus it keeps you and everybody else in the meeting accountable and ensures that everyone is on the same page. Reality is, some of your co-workers don’t respond well to tasks that aren’t written down, even if you’ve met about it.

Observe patterns of behaviour

We all have that co-worker who is so caught up doing their ‘work’ and they have no clue what is going on around them. Don’t be that guy.

Make it your business to know how every move adds up, or not.

While this is not a call for you to become the village voice for your place of work, it does you no good if you are unaware of what is happening in your company. Observing the corporate culture is key to helping you order your own steps.

Then there is the just being aware of how your fellow employees relate to you and each other. It helps if you are able to mentally profile your team members in order to better navigate the working relationship. Not only does it prevent crossed wires, but in general it allows you to focus on being productive and getting the job done.

This is why unpredictability upsets the apple cart so much. When people either take things personally or people get too personal with what they say and how they say it, it throws the workplace into chaos.

The more you know.

Choose your Battles

It takes a certain level of mental fortitude to withstand the temptation of email warriors in the workplace who are always ready to tempt you into a back and forth. Worse still, are the potentially messy phone calls that can devolve into an argument.

I remember the first and last time I got angry enough to shout at and hang up the phone on a colleague, primarily because I felt that the person in question was being extremely rude and disrespectful. The fact that I had to apologise, wholeheartedly afterwards, annoyed me to the core. It was a waste of time getting into a tiff, over work, in the first place. I vowed to never again get so that angry that I felt the need to lose my cool and behave like that.

Restraint is the name of the game and I have learned that the long game is the best game when it comes to certain work relationships.

It may be cute to recount your behaviour on Twitter, but in real life, it isn’t cute or quite as fulfilling.

Smile, wave, breath, vent as needed and carry on, because you never know who wants you to lose your cool and jump off a cliff.

When you do have to fight, use all the tools the corporate world provides: Well worded emails and no BS telephone conversations that can call out colleagues while still keeping it 100% respectful.

Never share your childhood nickname with your co workers

Learn from my mistake.

A term of endearment needn’t be scandalized by people you work with.

So caught up was in a moment of vulnerability (read food… I was eating food) during one of those team building gatherings, to get us to open up to each other.

I was relaxed, enjoying my meal and ready to endear myself to my team members by sharing something they didn’t know. Never occurred to me that, them not knowing was the gift, but alas.

I revealed my childhood nickname.

Who would’ve thought that the revelation would come back to haunt me? I felt a dread previously unknown, when co-workers started parroting this name as if it was appropriate or their place.

How dare you so casually throw a name about that was my dearly beloved, Great Grandma’s favourite name to call me by?

You don’t know the history, you don’t know what it means? But you think it’s cool?

Ha.

It get’s worse

To add insult to injury, a particular individual, who I wasn’t fond of decided that it was their prerogative to drop my nickname in at the most inappropriate and unnecessary times, At WORK.

A term of endearment needn’t be scandalized by people you work with. It’s one thing if my co-worker, who I’m close with, uses it. I’m good with that. What pisses me is the assumed kinship some people have by referring to me by a name that’s not for their use.

So, aside from my own sensitivity to being called by anything but my given name, it is clear that some ‘co-workers’ have no boundaries.

Take my advice and don’t give them a chance to ‘Run wid it’.

What are some of things that you are doing to make it in this Corporate Life? Let me know in the comments.

Be inspired, Be informed, Be Glorious!

Kevin

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